One film I’ve been looking forward to is Our Idiot Brother (formerly known as My Idiot Brother), which premiered at Sundance earlier this year to warm, if not spectacular, reviews. Jesse Peretz‘s dramedy stars Paul Rudd as a good-hearted but dim man who gets passed around between his three sisters (Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel and Emily Mortimer) as he tries to get his life together after his latest set of mishaps — one of which involved selling weed to a uniformed police officer. He’s that dumb. Watch the trailer after the jump.

Martin Scorsese is finishing up Hugo Cabret, his first foray into family films and 3D. The film is based on Brian Selznick‘s children’s book The Invention of Huog Cabret, and has nods to the early days of cinema and science fiction.

We’ve known the cast for some time; Asa Butterfield and Chloë Moretz as an orphan boy and strange little girl who become friends in a Paris train station, with support from Sacha Baron Cohen, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lee, Emily Mortimer, Jude Law, Michael Stuhlbarg, Ray Winstone, and more.

But it turns out there is a pretty impressive cameo in the film, which was revealed via a photo posted in a French outlet. That photo and info on the cameo is after the break — don’t go further if you don’t want some small spoilers — as is a photo of one of the pieces of technology in the film. Read More »

Cars 2, which opens on June 24, seems to be everywhere lately. Disney and Pixar have been nearing a saturation point with the release of new characters, images, TV spots and trailers.

Just this week we had a new full-length trailer that focused on the espionage aspects of the film’s plot, and now we have an extended international cut of that trailer. It isn’t hugely different, and won’t change your mind if you’re one of those without much interest in this particular Pixar film. But for those who are ready to go back to this particular world it might be a good extra tease. In addition to that different trailer cut, we’ve got four retro-styled Grand Prix posters and a handful of high-res images, after the break. Read More »

Walt Disney Pictures has released a new movie trailer for Pixar’s Cars 2.

They are really playing up the film’s spy storyline, but nothing I’m seeing is making me interested in this sequel. The first film is in all accounts Pixar’s worst movie to date. It wasn’t even very profitable at the box office, but made billions in toy/merchandise sales. I was hoping that Lasseter may have found some heartfelt hook (I loved the Route 66 storyline in the first film, but it came in way too late) but the trailers thus far present a storyline which looks like a sad excuse to cash in at Toys r Us. And don’t get me wrong, I understand this is the movie BUSINESS, but I have come to expect more from Pixar. They are a studio-run entity which time and time again have produced films which are at the perfect intersection of entertainment and art.

Watch the trailer embedded after the ump. Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

In my limited experience at Sundance, it seems like journalists and studios alike are always looking for “The Big One,” that is, that film like Little Miss Sunshine that will capture the hearts of Americans and (with the proper marketing) go on to rake in over $100 million at the box office.

Two nights ago at the world premiere of My Idiot Brother it seemed as though we might have a chance at seeing this year’s “Big One.” Certainly, the film has a lot of talented people behind it, including producers Marc Turtletaub (Little Miss Sunshine) and Anthony Bregman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), not to mention its stellar cast. So did the film charm the pants off the packed Eccles theater?Read More »

One of the more eye-catching comedies playing at Sundance is My Idiot Brother, which stars Paul Rudd (and his beard) as Ned, a guy who is passed around between his three sisters (Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer) after he tries to get back on his feet in the wake of a string of foolish failures. That’s the first image, above, and there’s another after the break. Read More »

One of the great pleasures of the Cars 2 trailer we saw yesterday — likely the greatest pleasure for many — was the surprise appearance of Michael Caine. The actor voices one new character, a British spy named Finn McMissile. His presence in the cast led many to closely examine the rest of the trailer in order to discover what other new actors are part of the sequel.

Now we know for certain that Emily Mortimer, Jason Isaacs and Joe Mantegna are all voicing new characters. Read More »

Andrew Niccol is prepping I’m.mortal, a sort of sci-fi film with shades of Logan’s Run that already has offered the female lead to Amanda Seyfried. Now Deadline says the male lead has been offered to Justin Timberlake. The film is an explicitly 20-something skewed idea, in which people have to buy time if they want to age past 25. The Seyfried / Timberlake pairing could work well, and I like the idea of Niccol doing more original sci-fi.

After the break, Steve Coogan and Cillian Murphy take new jobs. Read More »

The cast of Martin Scorsese‘s Hugo Cabret keeps getting better and better. I had a little moment of excitement a week or so ago when it looked like Mathieu Amalric was in the cast, only to find that was an early casting deal that fell apart.

But now there’s news that might be just as good. Emily Mortimer has joined the cast, as has Michael Stuhlbarg, who was so good in his debut feature A Serious Man, by Joel and Ethan Coen. Read More »

An impressive quartet of actresses has just signed on for My Idiot Brother, the Paul Rudd comedy that we first reported on last week. Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Rashida Jones and Emily Mortimer are all part of the cast as of now. (And just the other night I was wondering how the hell Emily Mortimer seems to have barely aged since appearing in The Ghost and the Darkness in 1996.)

The film is about “an idealist (Rudd) dealing with his over¬bearing mother who crashes at the homes of his three ambitious sisters and brings truth, happiness and a sunny disposition into their lives while also wreaking havoc.” Banks, Deschanel and Mortimer are his sisters, while Jones plays Rudd’s ‘caring, responsible’ girlfriend.

Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall wrote; Jesse Peretz directs. The film shoots next month in New York City.[THR]

After the break, it’s Bill Nighy in 3D! And Vinnie Jones becomes a super-villain. Again. Read More »